The Last Drive (13 page)

The Pickled Picnic

In this tale of local politics, Stout muses on the theme of idealism versus­ practicality. This was one of several stories Stout contributed to
The Black Cat
, a literary magazine published in Boston.

C
yrus Hamlin sat at his breakfast table ostensibly reading the
Morning Clarion
, but in reality watching his son James. James was reading the
Morning News
. He was reading with an intense avidity; his eyes shone with eagerness; his cheeks were flushed with excitement. For a full week this phenomena had been regularly recurrent, and Hamlin Senior was beginning to grow uneasy. There could no longer be any doubt that something had aroused James' interest. This was incredible. James the silent, James the incompetent, James the hopeless!

James had never done anything exactly wrong. The correctness of his morals was unquestioned, nor did he seem to be without a certain ability. His university career had been, if not brilliant, at least respectable, and had led his father to entertain high hopes for the future. He had been placed in a confidential position in the office of Hamlin & Company, and the gods began to grin. His first achievement was the dumping of a fifty thousand dollar shipment into the maw of Hilton's of St. Louis, who failed for a million three days later. He next proceeded to get into a very righteous and somewhat heated argument with Captain Voorhees of the navy, which resulted in the loss of the government contract and its acquisition by Hamlin & Company's most hated rival. This—all in a single month—was too much for Hamlin Senior. More in sorrow than in anger, he ejected his son from the home offices and sent him up to the mill somewhere in Massachusetts to learn the business from the ground up.

At the mill James outdid himself. He hadn't been there a week when he discovered that the mill hands were not being treated as a twentieth century mill hand should be treated. He protested to the foreman, and was told to mind his own business. He then expressed his views—somewhat forcibly—to the superintendent, who told him that he would look into the matter, and wrote to the elder Hamlin complaining of the invidious activity of the company's heir.

Within two days James got a letter from his father repeating the foreman's advice, with one or two added observations, unpleasantly blunt. James, far from succumbing to this show of authority, decided to manage the affair for himself, since he could get no help from the proper sources, and accordingly organized the employees into a union, arranged a strike, and proceeded with such energy that old Hamlin himself was forced to come up from New York to settle. He acceded to all the strikers' demands but one, that his own son be made superintendent.

Feeling perhaps that he had sufficiently distinguished himself for a man barely twenty-four, James, after the settlement of the strike, had allowed himself to sink into a state of innocuous desuetude. By dint of continuous application and unequalled opportunity, he became in a year the laziest man in New York, and acquired—or assumed—an attitude of utter indifference to the practical affairs of life. Indeed, this indifference reached a degree that alarmed his father almost to the point of anger. “Is it possible,” thought the elder Hamlin, “that the fool is an idiot?” But having in mind the cost and outcome of James' previous efforts, he forbore to disturb the calm, and allowed himself a polite smile when James took occasion to make observation on the potential power of a dormant intellect.

Thus James developed a personality that deserved to be called the very flower, the last expression, of indifference. He was not exactly melancholy; his real lack was enthusiasm, not interest. Still, it cannot be denied that gradually he began to look and act more like a monk and less like a man than is allowable in one who is expected to perpetuate a name and an enterprise.

After this explanation, you will easily understand why Hamlin Senior felt a positive thrill when his son came to the breakfast table six mornings in succession with a springy step and a bright eye, and eagerly devoured all the newspapers in sight before he would even so much as look at his grapefruit and jelly. Clearly, there was something in the wind. The first morning, Hamlin Senior had thought little of it; it might be a murder, a race—any one of those passing sensations that are dished up for the daily entertainment of the people. On the second morning he was mildly curious, and on the third he decided that it was unquestionably a divorce, and that James had made a somewhat late discovery of the fact of sex. But divorce suits rarely last six days, and by this time the elder Hamlin was frankly astonished.

As James sat reading the
Morning News
, an expression of firmness came over his face. Hamlin Senior eyed him silently. The young man turned to the editorial page, glanced over it for a minute, then carefully folded the paper and laid it beside his plate. Then he arose, placed his hands, palms down, on the table after the manner of an orator, and said in an impressive tone:

“Father, I've decided to enter politics.”

Hamlin Senior sat up straight in his chair, while the
Morning Clarion
fluttered from his hand to the floor. “Good God!” he exclaimed weakly.

James, not heeding the interruption, continued:

“Of course it is unnecessary for me to state on which side I intend to align myself. I shall be the champion of the people—the downtrodden masses—and against the base conspiracy of the bosses, of which I have been reading. The time has come when the predatory interests—“

Hamlin Senior waved a hand for silence. “James,” he said, “as a father, it is my duty to tell you that you're a blamed fool. Predatory jackrabbits! What do you know about politics?”

“Enough,” said James, with the air of a statesman who is considering the advisability of entering upon a dangerous war. “I assure you, enough. It is no wonder the people have been powerless to assert and maintain their rights, lacking, as they do, an able champion. I intend,” he glared at his father, “I intend that they shall no longer be without one.”

“And you, I suppose, are it?” asked his father.

James, being dreadfully in earnest, ignored the sarcasm. “If I am honored by being chosen as their leader, I shall not flinch,” he said resolutely. “The industrial pirates must be shown that it is the people who rule. Of course, I make no allusion to your personal—er—record.”

“Thank you. And what is your present ambition?”

“I shall begin in my own district, where I shall organize the masses. Reform, like charity, begins at home.”

“I see. And what about the—er—the sinews?”

“Oh, as to that,” said James loftily, “I shall of course expect your financial assistance.”

“Of course,” said the elder Hamlin, rising from his chair and starting to leave the room. “Of course—I don't think. Your damned insolence is really admirable. If you think that I—that you—if you think—” He was still spluttering with wrath when the door closed after him, leaving James standing in a Bismarckian attitude which was still very grand and solemn, despite the fact that his only audience was a mangled grapefruit and an empty chair.

The scene between father and son was in itself really unimportant. It has been recounted in order to show the depth and strength of James' purpose, in which he could not be made to falter even by the stern refusal of an angry parent. He knew very well that the people were being exploited by selfish interests—as who does not—and he knew also that the people, being honest, needed only honest leaders. And modest as he was, he felt pretty well assured that he could select one of the chosen without straying far afield.

He was going, he told himself, to build his campaign on the inherent good sense of the people. His disinterestednesss was really astonishing. He not only said that he wanted nothing for himself—he meant it; or at least he believed that he meant it, which is perhaps as near as a human is ever allowed to approach godliness. But the wonderful thing about it is that, for all his high-flown generalities, he kept his personal aspirations strictly within the limits of common sense.

In the course of the following week, James suffered from a series of shocks, minor, but still distressing. His was a fastidious nature, and he really had no idea that anyone but rogues could frequent some of the places into which he was led by his search for the people. The people, he found, were unbelievably elusive. In the first place, they were hard to find; and in the second, they seemed more inclined to laugh at than to listen to an exposition of their woes. Some of them even went so far as to deny that they had any.

It was about a week after the commencement of activities, in the back room of Doherty's saloon, that James met Shorty Benson. Here, at last, he found some encouragement. Shorty listened to him with flattering attention, the while he consumed uncounted schooners of beer.

“Well,” said he, when James paused for a breath, “that sounds mighty interestin'. You made no mistake comin' to me. And what do you want? Th' assembly?”

James was almost angry. “No!” he shouted. “Good God! Why does everybody think I want something? I want you to understand once for all, Mr. Benson, that I am in this fight for the people! I want nothing! Assembly! Bah!”

“All right,” said Shorty, soothingly. “I know it ain't much. But I thought for a starter—well, we'll talk about that later. Now to get down to business. In the first place, my name ain't Mr. Benson—it's Shorty. In the second place, there's only one guy that'll cause us any trouble—and that's Mike O'Toole. This district was mine till he butted in two years ago. Since then there's been hell to pay. Last year he got me by three hundred.”

A week previous such a statement of the case of the people would have filled James with grief and astonishment; but being hardened by a week of interviews, Shorty's picturesque language brought only a mild grimace. He thoroughly intended to make drastic reform in this respect later, but wisely decided that for the present the best thing to do was to ignore it. He tried to keep his tone from showing disapproval as he said:

“What we want to do is to let people understand that we are on their side. We are
for
the people.”

“Right-o,” said Mr. Benson, into his schooner of beer.

“And,” continued James, “in spite of their honesty, it must be admitted that they are ignorant. We must educate them.”

“Educate hell!” roared Shorty, without thinking. Then, at the look of pained surprised on James' face, he quickly recovered. “What I meant, Mr. Hamlin, was this: you can't educate 'em. Me and Red Barber's been tryin' it for years. You got to lead 'em.”

“Perhaps so,” James mused thoughtfully, “perhaps so. We'll see about that later. And now, Mr.—er—Shorty, how can I get together a crowd of—say, five hundred—to talk to?”

“You can't,” said Shorty decisively.

“Can't?”

“Not till they get to know you. Maybe not even then. First you got to get acquainted.”

“But how?” said James helplessly. “I've been trying that for a week, and they don't seem very anxious to—get acquainted.”

“Sure, that's where I'm the handy guy. Listen: come around with me for three days and nights, and you'll call every mick and dago in the district by his first name. That's the way to start. Are you on?”

James was certainly becoming cosmopolitan. He held out his hand and grasped that of Mr. Benson firmly as he said: “We'll begin tomorrow, Shorty.”

The ensuing ten days were hard ones. James spent them mostly in livery stables, saloons, and barber shops, and acquitted himself with a degree of aplomb and tact that was positively impressive. By the end of the week he was ordering beers by the dozen with a charm and frequency that won universal admiration. Shorty's confidence rose by leaps and bounds, and even then found it difficult to keep pace with James' enthusiasm; for James found a fresh stock with each new adherent. His father, who had at first considered the affair as one of James' whims, to be dismissed under his frequent and inclusive term of “damned foolishness,” was surprised by this unexpected constancy into a donation to the campaign fund that was more than ample for present needs, and which bid fair to make every saloon-keeper in the district independently rich, and release the people forever from the degrading bonds of thirst.

Still, without Shorty, success would have been impossible. With all the good-will in the world, James would have found it more than difficult to establish direct communication between his philosophic principles and the people's practical desires; but with Shorty always at hand in the role of interpreter it was no task at all. True, if James could have heard Shorty's popular translations of his dearest doctrines he would have been grieved and astonished; but he didn't hear them, so there was no harm done.

By the first of June Mike O'Toole was begging for mercy. His followers were deserting him in droves; literally by the dozen. His pleadings and promises were all in vain; the combination of James' principles, Shorty's diplomacy, and free beer was too much for him, and he was barely able to hold the fort—otherwise known as district organization headquarters—with a small band of personal friends and true believers. It began to be rumored in Fourteenth Street that he was done for, and the first week in June found him fighting desperately for a foothold where he had once been king.

Despite this apparent success, however, James was far from satisfied. He was a good deal of a fool, but he saw plainly that his hold on the people was of too fluid a nature to be either sincere or enduring. He knew very well that the only right relation between the people and their leader is the ideal one which he had proposed to himself at the beginning of his career, and he knew how far short of that ideal he had fallen. This thought worried him considerably; he fell to thinking of what would have been Abraham Lincoln's opinion of this compromise with the unrighteous powers; he even felt, as did Lady Macbeth, that he was permeated with the odor of his crime—only in his case it was nothing worse than beer. Studying the thing impartially, he was forced to admit that he had no reason to be proud of a victory won by such questionable tactics, and he resolved to purge his leadership of all taint at the earliest opportunity. He neglected, however, to say anything about it to Shorty.